Many educational organizations use Google Apps. Google Apps for Education is free for K-12 and higher, and there is always need for schools to backup and archive their data.
Integrated within Google Apps for Education, Google Apps Vault is developed and designed to reduce costs and risks by allowing users to archive, manage, and preserve emails and on the record chats for information governance, e Discovery, and regulatory investigations.
Here are four big reasons why Google Apps Vault will help schools and students:
1. With Vault, users will never have to worry about malicious or accidental deletion of user data. Vault’s retention and preservation features will keep your data safe.
2. Title V of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure which governs discovery requires that schools provide ESI (Electronically Store Information) when requested. Vault provides a flexible framework for organizations to create custom retention rules to meet their needs.
3. Google Apps Vault has no quota. Gmail’s 25GB quota does not affect back-end Vault storage so users can delete an email and Vault will still retain it. Once you activate Google Apps Vault, the users’ historical data will be archived as well as new in and outbound emails.
4. Vault allows an admin user to identify and pinpoint origins of inappropriate messages sent between faculty members and between students, and from faculty members to students or vice versa. Vault also allows the domain admin to share specific matters with their appropriate teachers, for instance to facilitate investigations on bullying.
Here are some of use cases:
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A group of students were accused of bullying another student. However, the students denied the accusation. While going through chat and email records archived in Google Apps Vault, the school dean was able to find evidence of the bullying.
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Parents sue a school with 1,000 students. The parents’ lawyer asks, in the discovery process, to see all of the email traffic related to their child. In response, the IT Admin of the school can search for related emails in the Vault, including any emails that a member of the staff has deleted.
The cost for Google Apps Vault for Education is 20% of the price of the Business version of Vault. Vault is free for students, but all staff and faculty users have to pay in order to use Vault’s archiving function. Please note that this pricing is available only to customers of Google Apps for Education.
If your organization does not use Google Apps but wants to qualify for Google Apps for Education, your organization must meet one of the following criteria: it must be a K-12 or higher educational institution, a nonprofit, or it must be accredited by a valid accreditation agency.
For more information about Vault and how to purchase it, contact Netkiller, the Top Google Apps Vault and archiving service provider in the Google Apps Marketplace.